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Sotheby's to Auction 'First NFT Ever Minted'

The auction will feature an NFT by Kevin McCoy minted in May 2014.

By Tanzeel Akhtar

Updated May 9, 2023, 3:19 a.m. Published May 6, 2021, 10:48 p.m.

Sotheby’s, established in 1744 in London, is launching its second non-fungible token (NFT) auction.

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In an announcement Thursday, Sotheby’s said the curated auction from June 3-10 will feature “the first NFT ever minted” – Kevin McCoy’s “Quantum.”
“Universally regarded as the first NFT ever created, Quantum is timestamped 05-03-2014 09:27:34,” Sotheby’s wrote in its announcement.
Some regard the Bitcoin-based “Colored Coins” as the first NFT.
The other two works in the Sotheby’s auction are a rare CryptoPunk from 2017 and Anna Ridler’s “The Shell Record” from 2021.
Bidding will begin at $100 and a portion of the funds raised from the sale will go to the Sevens Foundation, a non-profit supporting digital artists.
Given that Beeple fetched $69 million in ETH at a Christie’s auction in March, some are expecting lofty returns:

The Christie's punk auction is fascinating, if for no other reason than the sheer uncertainty surrounding the outcome. Every hammer price between 15 and 70 million feels equally likely.
— 4156 (@punk4156) May 6, 2021

NFTs CryptoPunks

Tanzeel Akhtar

Tanzeel Akhtar has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Forbes Africa, Financial Times, The Street, Citywire, Investing.com, Euromoney, Yahoo! Finance, Benzinga, Kitco News, African Business Magazine, Hedge Week, Campden Family Office, Modern Investor, Spear's Wealth Management Magazine, Global Investor, ETF.com, ETF Stream, CIO UK, Funds Global Asia, Portfolio Institutional, Interactive Investor, Bitcoin Magazine, CryptoNews.com, Bitcoin.com, The Local, The Next Web, Mining Journal, Money Marketing, Marketing Week and more. Tanzeel trained as a foreign correspondent at the University of Helsinki, Finland and newspaper journalist at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. She holds a BA (Honours) in English Literature from the Manchester Metropolitan University, UK and completed a semester abroad as an ERASMUS student at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. She is NCTJ Qualified - Media Law, Public Administration and passed the Shorthand 100WPM with distinction. She does not currently hold value in any digital currencies or projects.